Provoked: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Greenfield Academy Book 1) Read online

  Provoked: A Dark High School Bully Romance

  (Greenfield Academy Book 1)

  By: Lilah Walker

  Copyright © 2020 by Lilah Walker

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The material in this book is for entertainment purposes ONLY. Enjoy.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Other Books By Lilah Walker

  About The Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  They say life is an adventure.

  One big fun filled party after another.

  Day in and day out.

  Life is not an adventure. It is a whole bunch of years of other people telling you what you can and can’t do. What is socially acceptable and it stresses you out.

  Nobody asked me if I wanted to have this experience. Nobody thought about my feelings or if I have an opinion on where my life is going.

  If they did ask me, they would not like my answer. That’s probably why they don’t ask, they don’t even tell me what is on the agenda.

  They dump me off and leave in the middle of the night without a hug or even a kiss goodbye.

  I slump back against the black leather upholstered seat of my grandmother’s black BMW. I want a deer to run out on the road and hit her car to stop us from going to Greenfield Academy.

  I love animals and don’t want a pretty white tailed deer to get hurt or even die from the injury. It can do damage to the car. Hit it with enough force to change our plans for the day.

  We will have to call for roadside assistance and get a ride back to my grandparents' mini mansion in West Palm Beach and take a nap to get over the excitement.

  I bet there are no deer in this fucking perfect town about thirty minutes away from the natural woods of Florida. They would not tolerate wild animals running out in their wide paved roads and impair their expensive glorified vehicles.

  I have never seen this many pompous women gliding by wearing their oversized sunglasses, tossing their hair in the wind of bright cherry red convertibles.

  I need the gritty rumble of the motorcycles flying down the road leaving the smell of strong gasoline in the air. I need to see an old car holding its tail light together with duck tape roll past me as the driver flips a cigarette butt out of the window. I need the reality of my old city, not the fake, measured and thoroughly planned out landscape of every inch of this pathetic place.

  My friends are not texting me anymore because they know I am not coming back. They don’t care about what I’m doing today or any other day. They will go on without me even though I did my best to stay there. Hiding out in my friend’s basement was not one of my best ideas.

  I broke up with my boyfriend on purpose. I found a petty reason to make him mad at me and he fell for the bait. It was too easy. I wanted him to ask me what was wrong. I wanted him to tell me he would love me forever, but he didn’t do that. He fucking kicked me out of his house and out of his life forever. I guess it will be forever for now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When my mom asked me why I was crying on our long trip down here, she didn’t really care about my answer. She was focused on getting on with her life without me.

  Except, I didn’t know that was on her mind. I thought we were moving to Florida to help out my grandma. Mom told me granddad’s Alzheimer's disease was progressing and she wanted to give her mother a hand with taking care of her father.

  It shocked me. I thought my mom always wanted to get away from her parents and live as far away from them as possible. She always told me the only family she needed in her life was me. When she left her parents in Florida and moved us to New York after I was born, she never talked about moving back. Except for a couple of weeks ago.

  My mother never cared about helping out her parents. She didn’t care about helping anyone, but me I thought. She made sure I had everything I needed to survive in this world.

  She didn’t know I need her in my life.

  She left me behind. I woke up in my grandparent’s mini mansion a week ago to find my mother had left in the middle of the night. I don’t know where she went and I don’t when she is coming back for me.

  Why did she leave me?

  That’s what I keep asking myself when I try to fall asleep at night.

  I thought she loved me, but she just left me here like a bag of groceries. She has to know I would be pissed off at her for doing this. I hate this place and I’m going to hate this new school.

  “This is one of the best schools in the state,” grandma says coming to a stop at a red light. I roll my eyes as I lean my head on the window.

  “Your eyes will roll right out of your head one of these days, young lady,” grandma quipped. “I know that’s what you’re doing over there. I’m tired of seeing that same old look on your pretty face.”

  I sigh in return to her ridiculous warning. I would like to see that happen, at least I would not have to look at this blaring sun and fake happiness one more day.

  “I’ve seen your mother wear the same expression for too many days for me to count when she was just as pretty as you are now,” she says with a slight giggle.

  I think about her backhanded compliment. Everyone says I look like my mother. I’ll take it because I think my mother is beautiful. I don’t know if I look like my father because I’ve never seen him in my seventeen years. My mother never wanted to talk about him, so I stopped asking after I turned ten years old.

  He helped create me, but that’s about all he has ever done for me. He did enough to my mother by getting her pregnant with me and leaving her after she told about the pregnancy. We weren’t good enough for him to stick around and bear the responsibility of raising a child. My mother was so hurt over him leaving her, she couldn’t even bear to tell me about the selfish bastard.

  “Oh wow, I love this gorgeous campus,” she says sitting up in her seat as we turn into the school’s entrance.

  “Just take me back to my school in New York, please,” I beg as I stretch my left arm over to her steering wheel to grab a hold of it. She slaps my hand in a flash, then jerks the steering wheel to the left and grazes the freshly cut grass bordering the road. She huffs and gets the car back in the lane and continues driving. She turns her head toward me frowning.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Aleta, dear, I’m too old for this,” she says gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

  Do I feel sorry for her? No way. I want my mother to come and get me. I want to go home. I don’t even know my grandmother that well to even like her yet.

&n
bsp; If she wasn’t related to me, I think I would have told her to ‘shut up, old lady’, but she is my mom’s mother, so I’ll give her some respect for now.

  “I understand how you feel, dear. This is not fun for me either,” she says as she slowed the car down to a crawl around the winding lane.

  My grandmother looks straight ahead as she reached over for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. I appreciate the gesture and long for it from my mother. So, I don’t pull my hand away from her. I look down at her tanned hand scanning her thin aging skin wishing I could transform it into my mother’s younger hand.

  I can feel the tears trying to form in the corners of my eyes. I refuse to let them fall. I cannot let my grandmother see me fall apart like a little girl. I’m almost a grown woman and she should allow me to live on my own. I could get a job back home. I have to get back to my home. I have to leave with my mother and go back to the way things were before. I want to get out of this hot state, dammit.

  I’m not saying my life back in New York was the best, but it is all I know. My mother and I lived alone. We relied on each other. My father was nowhere to be found to help us, so that made us stronger. She was tough in a nice kind of way. If you pushed her, she pushed back. She told me to never allow my back to be pushed up against a wall and fight off all assholes.

  At night when I’m falling asleep, the only thoughts I have are why did she leave me.

  Now, she is no better than my absent father.

  I’m used to not having my father around, but now I have to wonder where my mother is hiding.

  Why would my mother run away from me?

  She is too old for such a selfish and childish act. My mother is not that old, but she is in her early forties I think. She never talked about her age, so I don’t know. Maybe, she is just forty at the most. I don’t believe she planned to have me, but she did and we were supposed to survive together against the world. She loved me and I felt it through my heart. She is the only family I have ever known.

  There were some times when my grandmother called her and she put me on the phone with her. It was always the regular conversations you would have with an acquaintance on the street.

  She would ask how I’m doing and how was school. That’s about all I ever knew of my grandmother. I never talked to my grandfather on the phone because my mom said he was quiet. He stayed to himself.

  My mother would go into her bedroom and close the door to talk to my grandmother. I didn’t care because I was not interested in their boring conversations. I never knew the woman and only cared about the dolls she shipped to me for my birthdays and every Christmas. I did love playing with them until I became too old to care about dressing them up and propping them up on my bed. My mother told her I was a teenager now and money was all I wanted, but I never saw those gifts.

  I guess she needed the money more than I did anyway. She probably saved it up just for the trip we took down here and now for her solo adventure. I wished she would have prepared me for her disappearance from my life.

  She could have at least let me know she was leaving me with her parents. She could have let me prepare for this heat and sun ahead of time. I don’t know if my grandparents even knew she was leaving me with them.

  Did they see her sneak off in the middle of the night?

  They don’t know her as I do. She has not lived with them in decades.

  It is supposed to be just me and my mom. If she wanted to go on the road and travel the country, I would have been down for that. She could have signed me up for homeschool. Hell, I would have chosen to go to school online. My mother would have never put me in a stuck up private school. She never had the money to pay for this type of school in the first place. She did not work at a fancy corporation as some executive. My mother was a waitress in a street diner. All of her tips went into paying for our small dingy apartment, keeping the lights on, and buying clothes for me from the thrift shop.

  My mother would be pissed if she knew about my grandmother put me in a private school. She would not want me to be around some, fake rich kids.

  My grandmother says “It is a great honor to go to a school like this, Aleta.”

  “Oh yeah, if this is an honor, I don’t want it,” I say with a smirk on my face.

  As I think about my day ahead, I glad I don’t have to sit around looking at my grandmother take care of my grandfather all day. I feel like I am living in an old folk’s home. She will drop me off and rush back to make lunch for him as they forget all about my struggles. I’ll stay here for the day to get away from that brain numbing routine.

  Maybe, I will pretend to like going to this place just to get through the school day. I don’t want to have her drive me here all of the time.

  “Are you going to drive me to this place every day?” I ask.

  “No, I don’t have the time to do this,” she said as she makes a left following the sign to the main building. “Your grandfather needs all of my time these days.”

  “Are you going to let me drive your beamer to this school?” I ask turning my head towards her.

  “Oh no, dear, you have to get your license first,” she replies.

  “No, grandma, I know how to drive, just let me drive myself,” I beg, shifting in my seat.

  “I will not,” she stated. “I may pay for driver’s training for you at some point to help you get your license.”

  “When?”

  I shouldn’t be here long enough to need a license in Florida license. I did not even think about driving in New York or getting a driver’s license.

  “If you do a good job here and earn good grades, I will pay for driver’s training for you,” responded my grandmother.

  “Oh wow, I can’t wait,” I said in a sarcastic tone.

  I am not planning to earn good grades. I hope I fail the fuck out of this place. She does not know anything about my past at my old school. I am not stupid and know how to get my work done, but if I want to play around, I can do that too. I can focus when I want to and make the honor roll. It was practically too easy with my teachers. All you had to do was pay attention when the teacher was talking, turn my assignments in on time, and smile here and there when they were looking. Most of the kids were either sleeping or talking to each other, so the teachers appreciated an attentive student.

  My grandparents have made a lot of money as real estate investors and they would love to make deals with the parents of these rich kids. They offered a house for us to live in down here, but my mother never wanted to live close to her parents. That’s why she took us far away from New York.

  Ever since my grandfather has become more of a handful for my grandmother, she talked my mother into moving us into their mini mansion to help out. I wanted to stay with my friends riding the subway, laughing, and singing our hearts out to the latest hit.

  My mother always said she loved my voice and that I had a gift for music. She sang around our little apartment all of the time too. She would teach me her favorite songs from the nineties. I will not be singing down in this hot hell of a place.

  My grandmother turns the car into a large parking lot driving alongside a white sidewalk until we drive into a u-shaped loop. We come to a stop to wait in a line behind large SUVs and expensive sedans as students bounce out of their vehicles looking happy to be here.

  “No, I’m not doing this every day, Aleta,” she says with a sigh. “I’ll sign you up for a car service until you make some friends. I’m sure there is a carpool you can join.”

  I look up at her open sunroof wishing I could jump out of it an run away from her and this stuck up school.

  “Take it all in, dear,” she says tapping my arm. “Look at where you’re going to school.”

  I put my head back down and stare out of my window at the art deco buildings. They look like they were designed by a young architect trying to make this school look like a fun place to be. The buildings are all tan with light blue, coral, and light green accents. They are all three stories spread
out on both sides of the drop off loop.

  There is a large tan stucco archway that all of the students walk through with the words Greenfield Academy written across the top of it.

  Situated right outside of Palm Beach County, the school owned by a group of wealthy corporate families, they charge enough to make sure only the offspring of the rich can attend.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Istudy the tall palm trees swaying back and forth in the wind. I can tell they were planted to be the perfect distance apart from each other and didn’t just grow up here on their own. Below them are tan cement planters with red and purple flowers looking like they are happy to greet us. I don’t share their enthusiasm to be here.

  “If only I could get my flowers to look as pretty as these,” my grandmother says as we inch closer to the drop off point.

  “Probably fake, anyway,” I mutter.

  “Pick one for me and wear it behind your ear for the day and let me know if they are real or not,” she says patting my hair. “A purple one will look so pretty on you with your new green and white uniform.

  I roll my eyes and look down at this thing I’m wearing. I would only have worn something like this as a Halloween costume back at home with my friends in the city. The green and white plaid skirt pleated skirt stop right above my knees. I glance down further to my white calf high socks stretched above my black mary janes. At least, my grandmother allowed me to wear my shoes. She thought they looked perfect with this stupid getup.

  The white polo with the green school symbol, an eagle with a crown above its head, on the left is inside of the skirt’s waist at my grandmother’s insistence. By the end of the day, I will probably pull it out. I am so thankful the green blazer is not required attire. They know nobody can keep those on in this Florida humidity.

  My dark brown hair falls over the crest as I peer down at the silly thing. I left it out for now but packed a black scrunchy in my backpack for later in the day to pull my thick hair it a low ponytail when the heat starts getting to me. I smack lips to make sure the lip gloss I applied is still holding on to keep my lips moist. I like to wear eyeliner and mascara, but decided to go without the eyeliner for today until I get used to this place. They don’t deserve to see my best face because I don’t even want anyone to look my way in this fake place.